a new series of micro-reviews for table top games. This episode includes Drum Roll from Artipia Games, Star Trek The Next Generation the Deck Building Game from Bandai and the Lord of the Rings Dice Building Game from Wizkids!

China is an abstracted game of political influence in China. Players use cards to place pieces (Houses or Emissaries) into the nine regions on the board. When all house spaces in a region are filled (or at the end of the game), players score for majorities of houses in that region. At game end, players then score for having majorities of emissaries in two adjacent regions. Players also score for having four or more houses in an uninterrupted sequence along one of the roads on the board.

Five cards are drawn. Each card contains a “class” and a list of “categories”. A category is selected for each class and the players and five letter tiles are drawn. The players have 5 minutes to come up with an example that begins with each letter for each class/category.

In Civility you are the leader of a growing city and its people. It is your responsibility to raise an army, strengthen your city through economic and technological growth, and make sure your people are healthy and well educated. War will gain you more power and status, but the pacifist will acquire allies and other important skills. The choice is yours; strategy and planning is key. Will you choose the path of war and manipulation? Or will you be the great leader in Civility?

In Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia, you lead a team of workers (dice) and recruits (cards) to claim ownership of the dystopian world. You will generate commodities, dig tunnels to infiltrate opposing areas, construct markets, collect artifacts, strengthen allegiances, and fulfill secret agendas.

Mayfair Games and Gen Con are ecstatic to announce that for the second year in a row, a science fiction legend will be joining us in Mayfair Land at Gen Con 2013!

Siege at Nem is a postcard style wargame for 1 or 2 players lasting 25 minutes and is the second game in the 2nd Lassadar game trilogy.

In this classic word game, players use their seven drawn letter-tiles to form words on the gameboard. Each word laid out earns points based on the commonality of the letters used, with certain board spaces giving bonuses. But a word can only be played if it uses at least one already-played tile or adds to an already-played word. This leads to slightly tactical play, as potential words are rejected because they would give an opponent too much access to the better bonus spaces.

A fun and challenging cooperative fantasy game where players are trying to complete legend objectives while preventing the castle from being overrun by monsters.

Players take turns placing their numbered tiles on the board so that their sum, both rank and file, is equal to a multiple of the “multile” number that is selected for that round. Highest score once all the tiles have been placed wins.